The
world is all before me, and I leave England without regret, and
without a wish to revisit any thing it contains, except _yourself_,
and your present residence.
"P.S--Pray tell Mr. Rushton his son is well and doing well; so is
Murray, indeed better than I ever saw him; he will be back in about a
month. I ought to add the leaving Murray to my few regrets, as his age
perhaps will prevent my seeing him again. Robert I take with me; I
like him, because, like myself, he seems a friendless animal."
To those who have in their remembrance his poetical description of the
state of mind in which he now took leave of England, the gaiety and
levity of the letters I am about to give will appear, it is not
improbable, strange and startling. But, in a temperament like that of
Lord Byron, such bursts of vivacity on the surface are by no means
incompatible with a wounded spirit underneath;[116] and the light,
laughing tone that pervades these letters but makes the feeling of
solitariness that breaks out in them the more striking and affecting.
LETTER 35.
TO MR. HENRY DRURY.
"Falmouth, June 25. 1809.
My dear Drury,
"We sail to-morrow in the Lisbon packet, having been detained till now
by the lack of wind, and other necessaries. These being at last
procured, by this time to-morrow evening we shall be embarked on the
_v_ide _v_orld of _v_aters, _v_or all the _v_orld like Robinson
Crusoe. The Malta vessel not sailing for some weeks, we have
determined to go by way of Lisbon, and, as my servants term it, to see
'that there Portingale'--thence to Cadiz and Gibraltar, and so on our
old route to Malta and Constantinople, if so be that Captain Kidd, our
gallant commander, understands plain sailing and Mercator, and takes
us on our voyage all according to the chart.
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